Château de Vincennes et sa Sainte-Chapelle

Vincennes

At the gates of Paris, Vincennes is a piece of the sacred as much as a fortress. It all begins with a tradition reported by the chronicler Joinville: Saint Louis liked to dispense justice under an oak in the Bois de Vincennes, near the Capetians' hunting lodge, an image that became the legendary picture of the fair king accessible to all. The crusader king brought back from Constantinople relics of the Passion, and it was to house part of them — including a fragment of the Crown of Thorns — that his descendant Charles V founded in 1379, at the heart of his new fortress, a Sainte-Chapelle modelled on the one at the Palais de la Cité. The building work spanned nearly two centuries: the chapel was only completed around 1552, under Henri II, by the architect Philibert de l'Orme, and its windows devoted to the Apocalypse are among the finest Renaissance stained glass in Île-de-France. Beside it stands the 50-metre keep completed around 1370, at once residence, treasury and library of the wise king, before becoming a state prison for Fouquet, Sade or Mirabeau. Damaged by an explosion in the 19th century then by the storm of 1999, the Sainte-Chapelle reopened in 2009 after long restoration. Between the memory of the oak of justice, the royal relics and the white walls, Vincennes tells how the French monarchy sought to root its power in heaven.

Getting there : Avenue de Paris, 94300 Vincennes, Château de Vincennes metro station (line 1); monument managed by the Centre des monuments nationaux, open every day (10am-5pm in winter, 10am-6pm in summer), combined ticket for the keep and the Sainte-Chapelle.

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound